Death at the Dance: An addictive historical cozy mystery (A Lady Eleanor Swift Mystery Book 2)

by Verity Bright

  Eleanor turned her plate in her hand. ‘It does feel a bit wrong, you know, Clifford. I mean, messing about in boats, picnic lunch, even going to that ridiculous Blind Pig Club while Lancelot is locked up. Not sure what I’m thinking of.’

  ‘I believe you are keeping your thoughts fresh and in sufficiently good order to be able to work through the facts and uncover the truth. Whatever that turns out to be,’ he muttered.

  ‘Yes, whatever that is.’

  Clifford passed her a plate. ‘Perhaps we should abandon the play altogether and go over the facts of the case as we have them so far.’

  She nodded, her mouth full of beef and mustard sandwich. After a sip of ginger wine, she sighed. ‘You know, I can’t believe we’re back here again, investigating another murder. I’ve only been here a few months. It really is incredible. Except of course the stakes feel much higher.’

  ‘Rather than dwell on that, my lady, perhaps we should establish a few basic details and then you could divulge what you gleaned from your sleuthing at the club?’

  Reaching for a mini pork pie, she pulled off snippets of the crust and nodded.

  ‘Here goes. Each of Lancelot’s friends seem… innocent enough on the surface. But…’ She rubbed her forehead. ‘There’s something I can’t put my finger on with each of them. Take Lucas, for instance.’

  ‘Is that Prince Lucas Singh, son of the Maharaja of Malwar?’ Clifford asked while topping up their glasses.

  ‘That’s him. While he’s here, he’s determined to have all the fun and ignore all the rules he can. And what better game than to be a jewel thief?’

  ‘If I might add to your theory, my lady? His father, the maharaja, is something of an expert on gems. Not surprising as the family’s main business interests have lain in the mines of Golconda and Subramaniam for centuries.’

  ‘How on earth do you know that?’ asked Eleanor, never failing to be astonished by the breadth of Clifford’s omniscience.

  ‘Your uncle,’ he said, not batting an eyelid.

  ‘Ah, now you come to mention it, Lucas did say they were acquainted. Diamonds?’

  ‘As well as sapphires and rubies.’

  ‘So it’s likely that Lucas would be able to recognise a real jewel. Could our serial jewel thief be a prince?’

  ‘It is also possible that he may have picked up some expensive habits here, ones he could not justify to his father in asking for an increased allowance.’

  ‘Absolutely. And he left the ball early. And on top of that he argued with the colonel over self-rule for India. He said he’d cheerfully have cut the colonel in two if he’d had, what was it? Oh, yes, a talwar.’

  ‘Strange, my lady.’

  ‘Not really, Clifford, the colonel could test the patience of Buddha.’

  ‘I meant a strange choice of weapon. A khanda would have been more suitable for the intended purpose. A talwar is largely a cavalry sword, whereas the khanda is a much heavier blade, designed—’

  ‘Clifford, we don’t need a dissertation on Indian swords and their suitability as a murder weapon. We do, however, need to add him as a suspect.’

  ‘As you wish, my lady.’

  She reached for her notebook and opened it. On her suspect page she wrote Prince Lucas Singh and drew a curved sword next to his name.

  ‘Now, on to Albie. Albert Appleby to you, Clifford. He’s a peculiar chap, in truth. The problem for our investigation is that his beef actually seems to be with the other members of the group, rather than with the colonel. The others tease him rotten, including it seems Lancelot.’

  Clifford offered her a fresh roll from the picnic basket. ‘So, even if we were to go with the theory that the jewel theft was merely a ploy to cover up the colonel’s murder, Mr Appleby would seemingly be without a motive.’

  ‘Mmm, yes. Unless his motive is revenge, and the actual target was Lancelot.’ She frowned. ‘We briefly touched on that idea when we discussed the dowager countess and her ward, Cora. And, again, I just can’t see it. Albie’s real problem, in a nutshell, is that he’s way out of his league socially, being the son of a miner.’

  ‘Forgive my ignorance, but I thought one of the main tenets of the “modern set”, as they call themselves, is that the class system is antiquated and reprehensible?’

  ‘Well, that’s what they say. However, they behave like the wildest bunch of hooligans you’ve ever seen.’ She smiled at Gladstone now holding his bone as an otter would as he munched on it.

  ‘At the risk of being indiscreet, it would seem safe to assume that Mr Appleby has no allowance?’

  ‘Exactly, he earns his own money tutoring.’ She stopped mid drink. ‘Golly, I hadn’t thought about it like that. A private tutor’s wage wouldn’t last a moment at the rate they party. Especially,’ she said, leaning in closer, ‘with the drugs.’

  Clifford straightened his tie and uncorked the sherry. ‘Indeed, the street price has more than doubled in the last two years since the introduction of the Dangerous Drugs Act.’

  ‘How on earth do you know things like that?’

  ‘All butlers and gentlemen’s gentlemen are required to keep a handle on their master or mistress’ day-to-day accounts. Some of my colleagues have had a much harder time doing so in recent years.’

  ‘Enough said. But where does that leave us? That the son of a prince and the son of a coal miner could be equally short enough of the readies to be our jewel thief? And possibly our murderer? Sounds rather far-fetched, wouldn’t you say?’

  ‘With apologies, my lady, in the case of murder, no theory is too far-fetched. I have never met a man, or woman, and instantly classified them as a killer. It has always come as something of a surprise.’

  She laughed. ‘Fair point.’ She added Albert Appleby’s name to her suspect list with a sketch of an apple. ‘Well, that makes four, so now for the Childs sisters.’ She took another bite of her pork pie. ‘Unless I missed something, the sisters don’t seem to be wanting in the financial stakes. I’ve no idea who or what their father is.’

  ‘Lord Childs, Earl of Wendover, is a financier of high repute. He is a member of the prestigious board at Coutts of London.’

  She gave a long, low whistle. ‘So unless the girls are too worried to ask for an increased allowance, they can’t have any money worries, no matter how wild their antics become.’ She frowned. ‘If we are going to take the idea seriously that the whole thing might be an act of revenge that got horribly out of hand, perhaps Millie simply snapped and decided to get revenge on Lancelot after he’d rebuffed her? “Hell has no fury as a woman scorned” and all that.’

  ‘“Nor hell a fury.”’

  ‘What?’

  ‘That is actually a common misquote, my lady. The line comes from William Congreve’s poem “The Mourning Bride”: “Nor hell a fury like a woman scorned.”’

  ‘Really? I wonder if this Congreve fellow knew Millie, it sounds just like her.’

  ‘He died in 1729, my lady, so it seems unlikely.’

  ‘Well, she’s so unspeakable I can easily see her biffing the colonel on the head and then whingeing she’d broken a nail doing it. I also overheard her threatening to have someone fired at the club.’

  ‘Interesting.’

  ‘But not terribly incriminating. It just turned out she was bullying the poor coat-check girl to supply her with drugs.’ Eleanor sighed. ‘Uncharitably, I wish I could say I had a whole heap of evidence against Millie, but I simply don’t. However, I feel she needs to go on my list as a suspect as she does have a possible motive.’ She added Millie’s name and swiftly drew a cat with its claws out next to it.

  ‘And Lady Coco?’

  ‘She’s a hard fish to pin down, you know. When she came here asking for help, she seemed genuine.’

  ‘But has Lady Childs the capability of being a notorious jewel thief? The thief who, despite a concentrated police effort, has remained at liberty.’

  ‘Seems unlikely, doesn’t it? Unless she has an accomplice.�
� She frowned again. ‘I think we’ll add her just in case.’ She wrote ‘Coco’ and next to it added a cocktail glass.

  ‘Which leaves?’

  ‘Mr Seaton, alias Johnny.’ Eleanor shook the crumbs from her dress, much to Gladstone’s delight, as he briefly paused in trying to bury the remains of his bone in a molehill to lick them up. ‘Of them all, Johnny seems the most together. He has that same unshakable confidence Lancelot has, only he’s super cool with it.’ She sighed. ‘At present, I haven’t really got anything on him but he should go on the list…’

  Next to his name she drew a pair of dancing shoes. ‘And that’s it on new suspects at the moment, I think.’ She glanced up. ‘Clifford, are you alright? You look unusually pensive?’

  He nodded distractedly. Eleanor waited. After a moment he cleared his throat. ‘I do apologise, my lady. A thought struck me that might put a very different “spin” on events as it were.’

  Eleanor was intrigued. ‘Do go on.’

  ‘Well, suppose just for a moment that we are wrong and Colonel Puddifoot-Barton’s death wasn’t a spur of the moment attack? Suppose the murder had been meticulously planned and the jewel robbery was merely a blind?’

  Eleanor nodded slowly. ‘That crossed my mind too, but that’s quite a big change of direction.’ She thought for a moment. ‘But that would mean there is another source of suspects we should also consider investigating. There would have been quite a handful at the ball, ignoring Lancelot’s bright young things, who knew the colonel through the Fenwick-Langhams or through other connections, I would think.’

  ‘And murders are largely committed by those who know the victim.’

  ‘Yes, unless he enraged a stranger so acutely on their first meeting that it resulted in the stranger finding himself with the murder instrument in one hand and the colonel’s head in the other.’

  ‘Very possible, my lady. However, to avoid speaking ill of the deceased, shall we assume otherwise?’

  Eleanor grimaced. ‘So maybe the colonel did know his attacker.’ She shook her head. ‘I confess, it makes me feel we’re even further from solving all of this.’

  ‘My lady, there are two of us. If you can continue your investigation of Lancelot’s friends, I can tackle the investigation from another angle.’

  She scratched her head. ‘I can get a list of guests who knew the colonel and I didn’t interview from Lady Langham, but, forgive my bluntness, Clifford, are the colonel’s other acquaintances likely to be very forthcoming?’

  ‘Forthcoming, my lady?’

  ‘Yes, you know, when interrogated by…’

  ‘By a butler, my lady?’

  ‘Yes. Won’t they send you off with a flea in your impudent ear for nosing about?’

  He raised a hand. ‘No problem, my lady. Like the mole I shall work underground.’

  She looked him up and down in amusement. ‘You don’t seem the type of man who likes to get his hands, or frock coat, dirty.’

  He rolled his eyes. ‘I meant it figuratively, my lady. “Yet digg’d the mole, and lest his ways be found, work’d underground.” Henry Vaughan, “The World”,’ he added by way of explanation.

  ‘By which you mean?’

  ‘If I may say so, behind every titled man and woman is an untitled but all-seeing servant.’

  ‘Ah! Now I know what you do at that Butlers Club of yours. You make and break lords and prime ministers.’

  ‘Not exactly, my lady. However, if all that was known by the members of such organisations as the Carlton Club were made public, many illustrious gentlemen would no doubt find their situation precarious.’

  She gasped. ‘I do believe you’re a socialist on the quiet, Clifford.’

  ‘It might surprise you to learn that despite being titled himself, your uncle was something of a socialist.’

  ‘So the two of you were secretly plotting the downfall of the titled classes? How wonderful! And did this conspiracy of yours extend to royalty?’

  Clifford uncharacteristically raised both eyebrows. ‘I think you may be over-exaggerating my and your uncle’s political stance. We weren’t about to become the next Guy Fawkes.’

  She grinned. ‘Pity. I can picture you two laying kegs of gunpowder under Parliament.’

  Clifford started clearing up the debris from the picnic while Eleanor finished her sherry. ‘A focused approach, yes. I’ll get hold of Coco and sort out another date with her and the others. You beetle, sorry, mole off to your Butlers Club and see what dirt you can uncover.’ She winked at him.

  Clifford loaded the picnic items into the boat, extracted Gladstone and his muddy nose from the crater he was digging, and then offered Eleanor a hand to step in.

  ‘And we both need to be careful, my lady. If the killer is in any of these groups he, or she, will not take kindly to our investigations.’

  She stopped halfway into the boat.

  He looked at her curiously. ‘Is something the matter?’

  ‘I wasn’t going to mention it, but when I left the nightclub I… I thought I was followed.’

  Eighteen

  The church bells rang down in the village, their chimes filtering up to Eleanor on the terrace of Henley Hall. Despite wearing a sunhat, she shaded her eyes with her hand as she waved to Joseph, the gardener, pushing his wheelbarrow between the beds of bergamot and ornamental grasses. He didn’t see her as he was chatting animatedly to Gladstone, who was trotting by his side. They were both soon hidden from sight by the high box hedging.

  ‘Your coffee, my lady.’ Clifford put the tray on the scrollwork table.

  ‘Perfect, thank you. I say though, it’s already Sunday. For our meeting with the Langhams this morning we need to be as sharp as… as sharp as…’ She waved. ‘Do you see? I can’t even finish an analogy. Quick, coffee! And strong!’

  ‘Certainly. In the meantime perhaps as sharp as obsidian would do? And I believe “as sharp as” is a simile, not an analogy, my lady.’

  ‘Actually, I believe it is a metaphor.’

  He coughed. ‘A simile is a type of metaphor.’

  She dismissed the matter with a wave of her hand. ‘Whatever. What is obsidiwhatsit, anyway?’

  ‘Obsidian. It is a type of volcanic glass, first used by the Malaysian Indians two and a half thousand years ago. It has a theoretical sharpness five hundred times that of any steel blade.’

  ‘Really? You know, Clifford, I have never met anyone who has such a wealth of information I neither need nor want.’

  He passed her the coffee cup. ‘Thank you, my lady.’

  She failed to hide a smile. ‘And actually, I was picturing the woman who runs the Reading Room in Chipstone, Pearly Brody. Her tongue, it’s so sharp it’s incredible she doesn’t cut her own throat just by swallowing. Golly, you should have heard her at the am-dram rehearsal. I mean, I’m all for women’s rights, but there’s a time and a place. And the Little Buckford am-dram rehearsal is neither the time nor the place.’

  Clifford’s eyes twinkled. ‘I rather imagined it might be Miss Green, the postmistress, who harbours the most dangerous of forked tongues.’

  Eleanor laughed. ‘She’s certainly close.’

  ‘Indeed, choosing a play each season could be deemed a significant waste of their time.’ At her confused look, he continued. ‘It is merely an observation that one could simply place the am-dram members together in the village hall and open the doors to the public. The audience would be treated to as much intense drama, colourful discourse and unending conflict as any scripted play.’

  She snorted and promptly spilt her coffee. ‘Oops! But also, the audience would likely even witness a murder!’

  Clifford finished mopping up Eleanor’s coffee and refilled her cup. ‘Might one enquire how you fared with your own performance, my lady?’

  She groaned. ‘Terribly, if I’m honest. Learning all those lines is really quite taxing. However, I shall persevere. I refuse. To. Be. Beaten!’ Each of the last three words were accompanied by a rap on t
he table which sent more coffee flying. ‘Sorry, Clifford, you’ve just cleared that up.’

  He set to mopping up the second spillage. ‘Most dogged, if one might say so. Your determination is to be applauded.’

  She frowned. ‘Well, that might be all the audience feel they can applaud if I don’t learn my lines. Awful timing though, coinciding with this murder business.’

  ‘Most inconvenient indeed.’ He adjusted his perfectly aligned starched white cuffs. ‘You might feel similarly about our need to set off now for your breakfast meeting with Lord and Lady Fenwick-Langham?’

  ‘Yes, but remember, it’s our meeting, Clifford. Lady Langham was formidably clear you are to be a guest as much as I. So, chin up. You’ll have to tell them what you found out while I was at the am-dram rehearsal all day yesterday.’ She frowned. ‘Do you think the Langham Manor cook will do anything even close to Mrs Trotman’s fabulous paprika relish? Maybe you could sneak some in for me.’

  ‘Augusta is out with her beloved roses, my dear Eleanor. Clifford, good morning to you too.’ Lord Langham waved to his own butler. ‘Sandford, better give us a woman’s half hour before sounding the breakfast gong if you will.’

  ‘Very good, your lordship.’ Sandford set off down the hallway towards the butler’s pantry.

  Eleanor accepted Lord Langham’s offered arm. ‘A woman’s half hour? Might I enquire how that differs from a man’s half hour?’

  ‘Oh certainly. I’d say by a minimum of sixty or seventy minutes to our thirty. A fair assessment, wouldn’t you say, Clifford?’ He steered Eleanor forward.

  From behind, Clifford replied, ‘I really couldn’t comment, my lord.’

  Eleanor looked towards him just in time to see him nodding, his eyes twinkling with amusement.

  ‘How is Augusta today?’ she asked Lord Langham.

  ‘Right now, she’s content enough, pottering about with secateurs and her favourite little flower basket, but…’

  Eleanor patted his arm. ‘But as soon as we arrive and talk of suspects and clues, her composure will begin to wobble.’